China not most censored, but may be most ambitious

China didn't make the cut for our 10 most censored countries. While the Chinese
Communist Party's censorship
apparatus is notorious, journalists and Internet users work hard to overcome
the restrictions. Nations like Eritrea and North Korea lack that dynamism.

But China is not off the hook. In fact, CPJ's report reads
like a list of China's favorite allies. China loves these nations, judging by its state media reports on Eritrea,
Equatorial
Guinea, Burma,
Belarus
and more. And they love China back: Iranian Deputy Minister for Economic
Affairs Ali Agha Mohammadi, announcing plans for Internet censorship in 2011,
openly cited China's information controls as a model, according to Fast Companymagazine.

What's more, international news reports indicate that China
is nurturing these regimes with technological and economic support, although
the extent of its involvement is difficult to track. China, while not the
world's most censored, may be on the way to becoming the world's censor.

Two Chinese telecom giants have been accused of facilitating
censorship in Iran, the fourth most-censored nation on CPJ's list. Huawei sold
equipment allowing Iranian police to track cellphone users in 2009 during a
crackdown on anti-government demonstrators, according to The Wall Street Journal. "Huawei
representatives emphasized that, being from China, they had expertise censoring
the news," the Journal reported.Huawei denied wrongdoing and said it would
limit
operations in Iran. Reuters revealed
a 2010 deal between Iran and China-based ZTE for surveillance apparatus, though
ZTE said the equipment it provided was "standard." ZTE also declined to comment
on a 2011 Journalarticle
saying it, along with some Western companies, provided technology for Muammar
Qaddafi's agents to spy on emails and chat messages.

These reports are the more concerning because the companies involved
are huge global players. Both Huawei and ZTE are active
in Africa. They have operated in Central Asia for more than a decade, according
to the Open Society Institute's New
York-based EurasiaNetwebsite.
And Sri Lankan media expert Sanjana Hattotuwa, on his citizen journalism website Groundviews, notes
that "major telecoms providers in
Sri Lanka have multimillion dollar contracts with ZTE and Huawei," citing
local media reports and a WikiLeaks U.S. diplomatic cable from Colombo in 2009.

The U.S., the U.K., and Australia have all
expressed concerns over the companies' possible ties to the Chinese government,
and the cyber-security implications of their global presence. A British
security official told The Australiannewspaper he had "no doubt"
Huawei partnered with China's espionage services. Yet "allegations against Huawei and ZTE are almost impossible to
prove," EurasiaNet said.

Here are some other examples of how China's repressive
attitude is creeping beyond its borders:

Setting
the regional information agenda. Police in Nepal arrested journalists and
Tibetan activists and threatened to deport them to China in 2008, according to Human
Rights Watch. A Chinese embassy official and local police ordered
Bangladeshi photographer Shahidul
Alam to close a gallery exhibit showing photographs of Tibet in 2009. Burmese
authorities received computer training from China and Russia in 2008, according
to CPJ research.

Diplomatic
influence. China is North Korea's largest trade
partner, undermining economic sanctions imposed by the U.N. and Western
governments and helping to uphold one of the world's worst censors (with
occasional caveats).
The military-backed government in Burma
has enjoyed the same support. Reuters reported
that ZTE's trading in Iran also violated U.S. sanctions by acting as a third
party to supply the nation with American software.At a 2011 London technology conference on cyber-security, China
allied with Russia against the U.S. and U.K. to lobby for stronger Internet
controls, according to Reuters.

Cyberattacks.
A number of hacking attacks directed at intellectual property of global companies
and groups perceived as anti-China -- including Tibetan human rights
organizations and journalists -- have been traced to computers in China,
according to international news reports. The New York Timessaid there is no proof the campaigns
are government sponsored, but traced some to Chinese Internet company employee
Gu Kaiyuan.

Obstructing
cultural events. Liu
Xiaobo, Liao
Yiwu, Yu
Jie, Ai
Weiwei, and Tibetan blogger Woeser
are among dozens of high-profile Chinese intellectuals banned from travelling
to international events. Chinese government organizations can dictate who is
invited to an event as a condition of their participation, according to the
U.K. Guardian.

Market
share. Official figures put the number of Chinese Internet users at more
than 500 million. Foreign technology companies comply with Beijing's orders to
filter content or get the boot,
denying them a lucrative share of the market.

Expanding
media empire. State news agency Xinhua reported
23 bureaus in Africa in 2011. China Central Television says it broadcasts in
140 countries around the world. China Radio International operates out of
Jerusalem, Sydney, London, Lagos, Harare, and Washington D.C. While some government-backed global media
outlets, such as the BBC, stress editorial independence, propaganda officials
encourage Chinese media overseas to remain loyal
to the party's agenda.

In China, this media push is known as "soft power." While many
media analysts believe editorial restrictions will prevent Chinese media from
competing on a world stage, it already reaches a wide audience. Over 2.5
million copies of state newspaper China
Daily's China Watch advertising supplement have been distributed in TheWashington
Post, The New York Times, and the
U.K. Daily Telegraph, according to
the Guardian.

Why worry about something as low-impact as an advertising
supplement? First, it's packaged
as news. Second, because the news outlets which carry it might compromise their
standards. Earlier this year, the Post
admitted in a correction
that "the Chinese government modified, deleted, and added questions" to an
interview it published with Vice President Xi Jinping.

Modifying, deleting, and adding? That's exactly how
propaganda officials manage news reports domestically. If Chinese leaders have
their way, it's what they will soon be doing all over the world.

Madeline Earp is senior researcher for CPJ’s Asia Program. She has studied Mandarin in China and Taiwan, and graduated with a master’s in East Asian studies from Harvard. Follow her on Twitter @cpjasia and Facebook @ CPJ Asia Desk.